I was lucky. I only sprained my knee. I was on two crutches for a month, one crutch for another month to six weeks, and a full YEAR later, I'm starting to be back at full function. Yes, it was a bad sprain. But a broken femur can kill you, so on the whole I'm awful glad I got lucky. Within 6 months, I was in good enough shape to help my sister-outlaw move. It's been getting the last stages of strength and stability back that were *****y.

In my accident, it wasn't that the tire caught on the rail, or that there were problems with the angle. Wet railroad tracks can be very slippery. You can feel it a little when walking in wet weather. If you crouch down and investigate, it's easy to notice. A bike *must* have traction from the front tire. No ifs, ands or buts. I lost traction due to the tracks being wet, and I lost it on the front. Down I went. A number of bystanders were *sure* I had been hit by a car. Nope. It was all the magic of rain on metal.

I spent a fair bit of time learning to fall as a kid, and that probably saved my femur. I didn't try to fight the fall, so the impact was spread over almost my entire left side. I also had a *healthy* dose of luck.

The bumpy lumpy tracks can be a problem. For the most part tho, even now I don't walk over them if it's dry out. (or rather I do, but only when I don't have my bike with me ) It's a fairly straightforward mountain biking problem, and the only way to learn how to pick a good line is to ride. If you're not sure, walk across. It's easy to miss details at speed. No traction falls suck, but diversion falls (where your tire needed to be at a 90 degree angle with respect to a bump, and it wasn't) are damn near as common. If you walk the bike over and pay attention, you can feel how you have to approach. You do need a certain degree of speed for avoiding diversion falls... slowing down can make a fall *more* likely. It's a game of momentum and balance, which is why my most hated track crossing isn't the one that got me. There's another crossing on the same rail line where I have to cross it immediately after a left turn at a traffic light. And I do mean *immediately*. It's quite probably the bumpiest track crossing I know of within about a 5 mile radius, and the tracks cross the road at a sharp angle. It's... fun. It's doable, but in rainy weather I feel *no* shame about walking it.